What Else Is Montréal to Me?

  Oh Montréal

my city of dreams-- 

I imagine a living canvas

It collects dreams from those who came before

Passed down through generations

Montreal is more than a city, for me, Montréal is a heaven on earth, where flowers freely bloom from the cracks in the sidewalks and music blares from the loft upstairs without fear or restraint (true story) 

My favourite band's graffiti outside of their first apartment/recording studio in Mile End.

It’s easy to dwell on the flaws of a city, to see only its shadows. But in Montréal, those shadows take on a certain charm, a charm best understood through its culture and its people

Growing up, I took for granted the places I lived- Malibu, LA, Australia, Montréal, I wasn't old enough to understand how lucky I really was, to be surrounded by such profound culture in so many places at such a young age. Back then, they were just cities, just backdrops to my life. The ocean was just water, the skyline just buildings, the languages just noise. I didn’t yet realise that every place held a piece of me, shaping me in ways I wouldn’t fully appreciate until much later. 

I moved away from LA just as my understanding and appreciation started to form, I was heartbroken leaving something with such identity.

I think that’s what made leaving so hard. It wasn’t just the city I was leaving behind, but the version of myself growing into it. I didn’t know if I’d ever find that feeling again, that sense of place, of belonging and community. But Montréal isn’t a city that asks you to fit into it. It just lets you be. She does not ask you to be anything but yourself.

I lived in the restless streets, then the suburbs, then the spaces in between. As I moved, I felt as if the versions of myself were being ripped off like a bandaid too soon, trading one version of life for another. It felt like every time I built something new for myself, some new version of who I was, it was violently torn away. 

My canyon

In LA, I grew up in the Santa Monica Mountains, just above Malibu. It was quiet, but you had to watch your pets at night for fear of them being eaten by mountain lions. The air and hills were dry, the nights filled with the distant sounds of coyotes. The suburbs were different, still, measured, and predictable. It felt like a pause, like the world outside had slowed while I was still moving at the same pace, like nobody understood anybody's dream, they were just trying to stay alive, just repeating the same motion of life, over and over again.

Maggie and Lele in my canyon

Montréal was nothing like that, it didn't move slowly, it didn't move fast, it moved with me. People didn’t just survive; they created, they lived. People weren't discarded onto the streets, there was a sense of care, elders were respected and the youth was understood and nurtured. 

I finally didn't feel as if the thing I loved the most was being ripped out of my hands, it never demanded I kept up or slowed down. It was the first place that didn’t feel like a transition or a blank soulless canvas, the first place that didn’t strip something away from me, where people shared my interests and didn't bring others down.

Oh, Montréal don't break my heart..

Je comprends

Je l'ai dit, c'est la vie. 

Vive Montréal! -Zee

My friends and I playing after the snow storm in Montréal

My friend trying to open her window after the snow storm haha